Sunday, 15 June 2014

UK local government – dating websites for no-brainers

This is very odd: "Liam Maxwell, the government’s chief technology officer, told PublicTechnology.net that the government would not be funding or instigating a single website platform for local government similar to the central government .gov.uk model".

Why is Mr Maxwell telling us what the government won't be doing? There are an infinite number of things that the government won't be doing. Why is he telling us about this one in particular?

Mr Maxwell's non-announcement is made in a PublicTechnology.net article, Bracken outlines G-Cloud engagement aim, about the putative savings made by the Government Digital Service (GDS) and their award-winning GOV.UK. Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE, executive director of GDS, says: "We are finding there is a lot of education to be done ... In the next Parliament we will engage more with the wider public sector on G-Cloud".

"The government will undertake more intensive engagement and education for local authorities on the G-Cloud purchasing framework from next year", as PublicTechnology.net put it.

What's going on? Why is poor old local government being singled out for re-education in Bracken's second term?

Cloud services are "quicker, cheaper and more competitive", according to Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude, with some tech companies estimating that they can be 25% to 60% cheaper than traditional long-term IT contracts.

Despite this, G-Cloud is largely being ignored by county councils

G-Cloud – the Government Cloud – is the Cabinet Office initiative to make it easier for central and local government departments to buy IT products and services.

To most people, putting your applications and data in the cloud means losing control of them. But if Francis "JFDI" Maude says that cloud computing is "quicker, cheaper and more competitive", that's good enough for the BBC and they go on in their article to quote the "shocking findings" of Bull Information Systems:

The findings have emerged after IT services company Bull Information Systems carried out Freedom of Information requests on all 27 UK county councils - 26 responded.

"By sharing infrastructure costs and moving to the cloud, county councils could take 20% to 25% out of total IT costs - they're wasting millions not doing this."

And not just Mr Carr. The BBC also quote Phil Dawson of Skyscape saying that adopting cloud is a "no-brainer":

Switching from long-term contacts with IT providers selling hardware and software to "pay as you go" virtual services with a variety of providers is a "no-brainer", according to Phil Dawson, chief executive of Skyscape Cloud Services, a G-Cloud accredited provider.

Who knows, but perhaps local government prefers to use its brain?

Perhaps local government isn't entirely convinced by the balanced case in favour of cloud computing dutifully reproduced by the BBC, please see the graphic alongside.

There again, perhaps local government is just being selfishly recalcitrant in the face of "modernisation" because it will involve job losses (40,000 of them, that's the figure GDS always quote). Even there, the helpful Mr Dawson has some advice. Let them eat cake write apps:

"There's no doubt locally run data centres would close," he says. "But there's also an opportunity to create jobs in the app development sector to compensate."

That's presumably what convinces the Taxpayers' Alliance to say in the same BBC article:

"At a time when councils are finding long-overdue savings across their operations, it beggars belief that they are not taking advantage of these new, money-saving technologies.

"Taxpayers expect their council tax to be spent on essential front-line services, not unnecessarily expensive IT."

I estimate that an averaged sized Council will be running around 75 different ‘line of business’ applications – by which I mean the ‘serious’ software that’s used to underpin service delivery, I’m excluding client installs such as CAD or pseudo-systems like MS Access databases and spreadsheets.

326 x 75 = 24,250 software applications.

So the first benefit of a Local GDS is obvious – increased efficiency through removal of expensive duplication ...

It may be arithmetically obvious to Mr Copley that the British Constitution should be re-written. You may disagree. You may feel that the Martha-now-Lady Lane Fox revolution has already been indulged with too much credulous observation. But the Estonian plan is there. As PublicTechnology.net say:

"The first event", PublicTechnology.net tell us on 9 June 2014, "taking place next week is being run by the Department of Communities and Local Government in partnership with the Government Digital Services ... The second event, a 'Hackathon', is being held the next week in Birmingham, and is being organised by council digital network LocalGov Digital, with innovation charity Nesta".

What the millions may not know is that there was a showcase for digital government held at the Royal Institution, of all places, the day before yesterday, 13 June 2014 – PrimeConf: "Our conference is going to be a celebration of great British technology and technologists. Taking a countrywide approach we have invited guest speakers from around Britain to talk about what they know and what they do. We will also be live streaming the event so everyone who wants to can watch regardless of location".

In view of the impending retirement of Sir Gus O'Donnell , Sir Richard Mottram conducted a review of Whitehall and identified seven abi...

Breakfast, anyone?

£10-worth of intelligent artifice, now ranked 4,915,029 7,300,721 on Amazon!

They said it first:

The relentless growth in size and functions of the Department of State and the relatively high level in calibre of those who staff them, coupled with the steady decline in importance of and function of MPs, has led to a gradual transfer of power and influence from the floor of the House of Commons to the private rooms of permanent civil servants.

I breakfasted at Mr. Falconer's well, and much pleased with my inquiries. Thence to the dock, where we walked in Mr. Shelden's garden, eating more fruit, and drinking, and eating figs, which were very good, and talking while the Royal James was bringing towards the dock, and then we went out and saw the manner and trouble of docking such a ship, which yet they could not do, but only brought her head into the Dock, and so shored her up till next tide. But, good God! what a deal of company was there from both yards to help to do it, when half the company would have done it as well. But I see it is impossible for the King to have things done as cheap as other men.

Housewives as a whole cannot be trusted to buy all the right things, where nutrition and health are concerned. This is really no more than an extension of the principle according to which the housewife herself would not trust a child of four to select the week’s purchases. For in the case of nutrition and health, just as in the case of education, the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves.

... civil servants have years of experience, jobs for life, and a budget of hundreds of billions of pounds, while ministers have, usually, little or no experience of the job and could be kicked out tomorrow. After researching and writing 44 episodes and a play, I find government much easier to understand by looking at ministers as public relations consultants to the real government – which is, of course, the Civil Service.

His [Steve Hilton's] hour-long class on “How to make change happen in government” offers a startling insight into the frustration of Cameron’s inner circle at its own impotence in the face of the formidable Whitehall machine.

Those who optimistically believe they are breaking new ground by improving the online experience are often merely tracing footprints on a path already much trodden, reinventing and rediscovering anew the same things – from a common website to cross-government platforms. The result has been several generations of faster horses.